I inherited four carbide lamps from my grandfather from his days spelunking. He actually took me out to crawl and wade through a cave with those lamps on our heads, I thought I was one of the only people in our generation to use one in practice. Great to learn a little more about it, maybe I should give them a polish. Great video as always
That striker can use a salvaged "flint" from a disposable lighter If it is too long, clip it with diagonal cutters. You could mount a piece of lime in the flame path of the carbide lamps to act as an incandescent mantle.
I just discovered your videos. What a fabulous find. You subject matter is always interesting. Your delivery is informative and entertaining. I feel my spirits rise after every one of your videos
the local army surplus where i live is STILL selling huge tins of carbide for extremely cheap (cheaper than any online chemical retailer). i always keep a few pebbles of it in my survival gear double wrapped in plastic. its fantastic at starting fires in the rain or snow
I discovered Calcium Carbide back in 72. I visited a hardware store and saw it. Thought I would play around with it in some way. I did not have a lamp but I went over to a friends house in the country and we dropped a few rocks into a coco container that had a pop off lid. Dab of water and a match to a hole on the side, boom. But I wanted more so I brought some one gallon jugs and we lit those. Much louder and violent. The next week I brought what we called the H bomb. A 55 gallon polyurethane liner for a steel barrel. I removed the liner and took it out in the middle of friends yard, about 50 feet from his house. We charged it up and for ignition we used a 9000 volt neon transformer connected to several extension cords so we would not be too close. We had no idea how big this was going to be. With barrel charged and ready to go, we plugged in the transformer. A slight delay after , it exploded. You could partially see light through the liner and it split the side of the liner open with a big fireball shooting across his yard. Also, since I had short wires on the 9 pound transformer, we placed it on top of the liner. The top flexed so hard that it sent that transformer straight up in the air, higher than his house, with the extension trailing behind it then came down and half of it stuck in the ground. His dad came running out , hollaring, what are you doing!? It shook there whole house. He did not stay mad because in a way he thought it was cool too, just dont do it anymore. I did make one more thing using this gas generator stuff. I got me a 5 foot, 4 inch bore PVC pipe and capped one end. Drilled a hole and screwed a sparkplug into it to connect to that 9000 volt transform for ignition. This " cannon " was fired several times and was tricky to get the mix just right for biggest discharge. If too rich, it would put out a slow flame with weird viberations of sound that were cool by thereselves. But once lean enough, BOOM. Set it off in town one 4th of July in sister in laws back yard. Pointed toward a tree at 45 degree angle, one of those perfect discharges happened and with nothing in the caonnon , it shot a good 3 foot flame and resulting ball of air went to the trees and pushed the branches out of the way as it traveled through, then they swung back to position. After that , I am told that the dispatcher for our police department lived next door. But she must have been to the park for the fireworks. I never tried putting anything in the barrel because this thing was so violent when it went off, I did not trust the pvc to hold up to the pressures. Man, I wish I had a cell phone or digital camera back then. I still wonder at times how I grew up with all fingers and toes plus eye sight, that is another story.. lol
There are some European countries that have barrel launching events using calcium carbide. They can be found on YT, it’s interesting the competition they have at launching these drums.
@@Subgunman there's that Thai (I think) festival with the flying fireworks wheels, and the Mexican event with exploding hammers, too. So much fun to be hand when "Elf n' Safety" types aren't involved.
If you've ever watched someone adjust an oxy-acetylene torch before they turn the O2 on, it's very bright. The energy of combustion, even in air, is quite high, but incomplete--the carbon in the atom is driven into strong incandescence, thus the bright flame. That's my understanding.
30 years ago I used to do a lot of caving. Long story short I had some old carbide lamps and a couple of containers of calcium carbide. My house caught fire while I was at work. My neighbor said when the fire department was spraying water on the house there was a loud bang and a big huge rush of fire and the fire department kind of scattered for a minute. I somewhat kind of wish I would have been there to have seen that as I'm guessing a far hose on about 3-1 gallon containers of calcium carbide did not go so great.
Just a fun side note. Most of the graffiti in old mines was made with carbide lamps. The miners would turn them up to the point where the flame made visible smoke and then use them to write on the walls with the carbon it generated. It worked much like holding a candle or lighter near a piece of glass or other inflammable item.
Ive seen unbelievably bright carbide lamps before. They definitely had the edge on pure output in a package that small. Incandescent lighting can’t hold a candle…..oh wait…
My great grand parents from my mother's side used a carbide lantern on the house before electricity came. It wasn't a miner's lantern, it was made to be used in the houses of people. My grand parents from my father's side just used a typical house oil lantern. Also, it's great to see that electric light still in box with the instructions and everything.
Zippo lighter flints should work in the carbide light they're available all over. A lot of gas stations have them. A Zippo lighter usually has a spare in the bottom cotton
My family have my grandfather's Davy lamp. Where I'm from in Wales, replicas/modern reproductions are common and I have a few of those as well. And speaking of my grandfather, he told me that when he was young, he used to drill a hole in a cocoa tin. He'd place a small piece of carbide on the lid, drip some water onto it, then place the tin upside down onto the lid. He'd let it fill a bit with gas, then take a match tied to the end of a broom handle and light it where the hole was. Boom! The tin would go flying up into the air. As a coal miner, he was a reserved occupation, so he joined the Home Guard as a motorbike despatch rider.
That electric multi-bulb switch is a fantastic piece of simple engineering. I can imagine a miner's grin when they were able to 'just switch' to the backup upon losing the first one 😎
I used a carbide headlamp when caving for almost a year, then switched to LEDs. The tank has the added benefit of warming up, so it keeps you warm when not moving. The soot is bad though, even if you don't see it, at the end of a 8-10 hour trip your nose will be full of soot. One trick we had to keep the tank cleaner was to put the carbide in a sock, which also helps controlling the reaction.
I think refinishing the reflective disc surfaces on the lamps with reflective paint would be a great idea, especially since they where pretty obviously covered in some kind of reflective material before.
Those lager battery operated lamps ( time at 13:10) were used in the 1950's-1970's on Railroad Lines by Brakemen. I still have my Dad's (brakeman & conductor) on Erie-PA / Penn-Central Railroad.
I actually used carbide lamps, caving (or spelunking) with my friends in the late 80's and early 90's! I still have some of them in my basement, I think.
Tallow (rendered beef fat) candles were quite common. Imagine working in the mine smelling hamburger all day long! For polish try Bar Keeper's Friend. Feldspar (mild abrasive) Linear Sodium Dodecyl Benzene Sulfonate (surfactant) Oxalic Acid (rust remover) The carbide lamp works quite well. Noting like a torch underground! This was terrific. Thanks for sharing.
I've done a fair bit of caving on carbide light. It's surprisingly pleasant, the flame gives a softer light which although it doesn't have much range feels quite natural. I started caving a bit too late (ca 1982) for the head-mounted lights to be popular (Premier cap lamps here in the UK) but had a waist-mounted generator (Fisma, Spain) with a head-mounted burner and peizo ignitiion (Petzl, France). Although electric light was widely used and generally less troublesome the big benefit of carbide was on longer trips - 12 hours+ - where carrying spare carbide was less problematic than spare batteries for the bulky coal-miners surplus lamps we otherwise used. I believe carbide is a by-product from the steel industry and used to be cheap and readily available, but is harder to come by these days partly because of regulations around storing it in bulk.
I have a question, i dug a hole in my garden and before i close it up again i want to place a diy timecapsule in it with messages and little things from people of the neighborhood, what would be a good vessel for that? For some reason this community felt like the right place to ask such a question. Thanks in advance!
I did a lot of little time capsules when I was a kid! Something that will be permanently waterproof is key, lots of old time capsules were ruined by water. Most watertight would probably be a big PVC pipe and glue end caps on it with PVC cement.
For flints you could take apart a typical lighter and extract it from there , or else you can buy zippo or other generic brand flints in packs of ten I think . Thanks for the video , all the best !
The hoop rotates around, and makes a handle, pointing the light to the ground. Also, the hoop goes in the crook of the arm while riding the ladders of freight cars.
If you want to get flints try taking apart dead disposable lighters. The BiC ones have a thicker flint and the cheaper ones have a thinner flint. I have a gum strip canister full of flints that I've saved and they fit in my Zippo and clipper lighters.
CLR and water soak will brighten up the metal, you may also use Rust Out which is a water softener additive but the citric acid powder is strong so use it cautiously.
Very cool episode! A close friend of mine has been to sand land, he brought another friend by that has been there. Talk about celebrity status! I was like you have been there?!
I know it's a bit of an ask but a photo cell and an op amp hooked to the ADC of an arduino or rpi could easily give you a quick and dirty light measurement. Love the video!
My mother had a carbide lamp on her bicycle in the 1940s during WW2 when electric lights were too expensive for a child. She disliked it much, because of the handling and the stench, but the light was much brighter than electric light afterwards.
Those Justrite carbide lamps used a silver plated reflector made of brass, careful in polishing, the silver plate is extremely thin and it’s possible to polish it off. As for the oil lamp, check with some of the collections groups to see if polishing that reflector would decrease the value of the lamp. As for flints, find a decent tobacco ship, many times they will sell packs of flints made by Zippo or Ronson. One you have unscrewed the back cover and extracted it with the fine spring, you may find the barrel obstructed with the oxidized residue of the old flint. Use a small drill bit and twist it by hand slowly in the tube to remove the old flint. Once you have made it to the striker wheel back out the bit and go the next size up and again do not use a drill but use your fingers to twist the drill bit through. It is a long but safe process for clearing out the oxide. When you fired up the one lamp I did notice in the video that there was a bit of bubbling behind the nozzle which indicated a leak between the nozzle and its mount in the lamp. Might want to see if you reset the nozzle properly pressed into the nozzle. Back in the 50’s through the 70’s there was a company which sold small cannons and fuel in what came in a toothpaste style tube. I believe these were called Bangsite cannons. Who knows they might still be around today. The fuel was actually small pellets of calcium carbide.
you forgot the evolution of oil lamp to pressure oil lamps. The Petromax HK500. Most butane camping lamps still use its 100 year old princible of blowing a mix of air/fuel mix into the mantle making it glow as bright as 500 candles :D They dont smell as bad as the primitive wick type and sure are bright as hell
@4:15 - I do believe that the one lamp I have to show you may be a Davey lamp. It both looks like a flame lamp, but would also seal the flame in. This unit is missing the glass (i think). I will contact you in private. EDIT - I dug it out...it's a Koehler lamp made in Marlboro Mass. It's all brass construction but I am certain that it is missing a couple of parts. It's quite substantial. I think it's called a "Permissable Flame Lamp" This one does NOT have the M.S.H.A label though.
Interesting! I've been looking for a real Davey lamp for mine exploring, I've tried the modern gas sensors but the darn things always fail or go out of calibration on me.
I think you can make the Carbide lantern reflector better by having it Chrome or nickle plated... They should sell flints for cig lighters, but I have not looked in a long time...
For measuring the light output with a phone, you can use an app like sensor multitool to read the exact output of the ambient light sensor, it ain't the best, but it works
I offered to donate a couple of digital cameras to you a little bit back. Based on this video, I have another item to donate to the channel. I'm going to try and track down your email to send you photos of these items. I won't be offended if you don't want these items. Donating them to someone who is excited about and uses these things would make me happy. I simultaneously love and hate donating things like this to Goodwill. You already helped me save 2 scanners from the donate bucket.
My Grandfather had a Davey lamp, but I have no idea what happened to it when he died... I believe replicas are quite common these days. Edit: GPS Status app for Android gives Lux readings, and has a free version, although it's worth paying a dollar or two for. Been using it for years. 👍
I can actually picture miners back in the day spending their paycheck on "the new improved, explosion proof electric lamp" and being rather put off by it's performance. Lol It's always interesting to see how advancements in technology tend to start off as a downgrade. Just imagine if the miners could see the LED lamps we have today.
Brasso cleans all of that, but do you really want to clean them? Zippo lighters have flint about that size. You should easily find some at your nearest smoke shop or online.
Those are truly beautiful mining lamps. I think Thomas Alva Edison made mining lamps safer with the invention of the light bulb and the nickel-iron accumulator. This type of lighting was also used in cars in the past. It's a very interesting topic, and I would be pleased to see more historical items showcased.
I inherited four carbide lamps from my grandfather from his days spelunking. He actually took me out to crawl and wade through a cave with those lamps on our heads, I thought I was one of the only people in our generation to use one in practice. Great to learn a little more about it, maybe I should give them a polish. Great video as always
“Fixing old miners lights and testing them,” it’s like… he just gets me, and what I like!
I need a Cody’s Lab / saveitforparts colab so badly.
That striker can use a salvaged "flint" from a disposable lighter If it is too long, clip it with diagonal cutters. You could mount a piece of lime in the flame path of the carbide lamps to act as an incandescent mantle.
I just discovered your videos. What a fabulous find. You subject matter is always interesting. Your delivery is informative and entertaining. I feel my spirits rise after every one of your videos
the local army surplus where i live is STILL selling huge tins of carbide for extremely cheap (cheaper than any online chemical retailer). i always keep a few pebbles of it in my survival gear double wrapped in plastic. its fantastic at starting fires in the rain or snow
Would it still be cheaper with shipping included you can send me some 😁
The variety and genuineness of this channel is excellent. Keeps me entertained!
I discovered Calcium Carbide back in 72. I visited a hardware store and saw it. Thought I would play around with it in some way. I did not have a lamp but I went over to a friends house in the country and we dropped a few rocks into a coco container that had a pop off lid. Dab of water and a match to a hole on the side, boom. But I wanted more so I brought some one gallon jugs and we lit those. Much louder and violent. The next week I brought what we called the H bomb. A 55 gallon polyurethane liner for a steel barrel. I removed the liner and took it out in the middle of friends yard, about 50 feet from his house. We charged it up and for ignition we used a 9000 volt neon transformer connected to several extension cords so we would not be too close. We had no idea how big this was going to be. With barrel charged and ready to go, we plugged in the transformer. A slight delay after , it exploded. You could partially see light through the liner and it split the side of the liner open with a big fireball shooting across his yard. Also, since I had short wires on the 9 pound transformer, we placed it on top of the liner. The top flexed so hard that it sent that transformer straight up in the air, higher than his house, with the extension trailing behind it then came down and half of it stuck in the ground. His dad came running out , hollaring, what are you doing!? It shook there whole house. He did not stay mad because in a way he thought it was cool too, just dont do it anymore. I did make one more thing using this gas generator stuff. I got me a 5 foot, 4 inch bore PVC pipe and capped one end. Drilled a hole and screwed a sparkplug into it to connect to that 9000 volt transform for ignition. This " cannon " was fired several times and was tricky to get the mix just right for biggest discharge. If too rich, it would put out a slow flame with weird viberations of sound that were cool by thereselves. But once lean enough, BOOM. Set it off in town one 4th of July in sister in laws back yard. Pointed toward a tree at 45 degree angle, one of those perfect discharges happened and with nothing in the caonnon , it shot a good 3 foot flame and resulting ball of air went to the trees and pushed the branches out of the way as it traveled through, then they swung back to position. After that , I am told that the dispatcher for our police department lived next door. But she must have been to the park for the fireworks. I never tried putting anything in the barrel because this thing was so violent when it went off, I did not trust the pvc to hold up to the pressures. Man, I wish I had a cell phone or digital camera back then. I still wonder at times how I grew up with all fingers and toes plus eye sight, that is another story.. lol
There are some European countries that have barrel launching events using calcium carbide. They can be found on YT, it’s interesting the competition they have at launching these drums.
PVC cannons using carbide are NOT safe. Look at all of the potato cannons that have blown up with just the use of hair spray.
That's great! I've done cannons with propane and yeah, it's hard to get the mix just right!
@@Subgunman there's that Thai (I think) festival with the flying fireworks wheels, and the Mexican event with exploding hammers, too. So much fun to be hand when "Elf n' Safety" types aren't involved.
@@erinw6120 yes I have seen some vids on the Mexican exploding hammers. Quite interesting event!
Сразу вспомнил как мы использовали карбид, смешивая его с водой, грязью или краской в бутылках, взрывая в людных местах )) эх, детство))
I really didn't expect the carbide lamp to be so bright, that is super cool
I was thinking maybe twice as bright as a candle lol
If you've ever watched someone adjust an oxy-acetylene torch before they turn the O2 on, it's very bright. The energy of combustion, even in air, is quite high, but incomplete--the carbon in the atom is driven into strong incandescence, thus the bright flame. That's my understanding.
got a couple of old vintage car carbide lamps
30 years ago I used to do a lot of caving. Long story short I had some old carbide lamps and a couple of containers of calcium carbide. My house caught fire while I was at work. My neighbor said when the fire department was spraying water on the house there was a loud bang and a big huge rush of fire and the fire department kind of scattered for a minute.
I somewhat kind of wish I would have been there to have seen that as I'm guessing a far hose on about 3-1 gallon containers of calcium carbide did not go so great.
Wow! Sorry to hear, but I bet that was exciting.
Surprised about the carbide lights birghtness. cool!
Just a fun side note. Most of the graffiti in old mines was made with carbide lamps. The miners would turn them up to the point where the flame made visible smoke and then use them to write on the walls with the carbon it generated. It worked much like holding a candle or lighter near a piece of glass or other inflammable item.
Ive seen unbelievably bright carbide lamps before. They definitely had the edge on pure output in a package that small. Incandescent lighting can’t hold a candle…..oh wait…
My great grand parents from my mother's side used a carbide lantern on the house before electricity came. It wasn't a miner's lantern, it was made to be used in the houses of people.
My grand parents from my father's side just used a typical house oil lantern.
Also, it's great to see that electric light still in box with the instructions and everything.
Zippo lighter flints should work in the carbide light they're available all over. A lot of gas stations have them. A Zippo lighter usually has a spare in the bottom cotton
My family have my grandfather's Davy lamp. Where I'm from in Wales, replicas/modern reproductions are common and I have a few of those as well. And speaking of my grandfather, he told me that when he was young, he used to drill a hole in a cocoa tin. He'd place a small piece of carbide on the lid, drip some water onto it, then place the tin upside down onto the lid. He'd let it fill a bit with gas, then take a match tied to the end of a broom handle and light it where the hole was. Boom! The tin would go flying up into the air. As a coal miner, he was a reserved occupation, so he joined the Home Guard as a motorbike despatch rider.
Carbide lighting wasn't just for mining in the way back. Houses in rural areas used carbide lamps prior to rural electrification.
That electric multi-bulb switch is a fantastic piece of simple engineering. I can imagine a miner's grin when they were able to 'just switch' to the backup upon losing the first one 😎
I used a carbide headlamp when caving for almost a year, then switched to LEDs. The tank has the added benefit of warming up, so it keeps you warm when not moving. The soot is bad though, even if you don't see it, at the end of a 8-10 hour trip your nose will be full of soot. One trick we had to keep the tank cleaner was to put the carbide in a sock, which also helps controlling the reaction.
hi you can use the flints from Bic lighters for your carbon lamps they fit perfectly.
Carbide lamps were very popular on bicycles in the early 1900s.
Very cool! :)
All fine what you said about carbide. I will just add that the residue is composed of calcium hydroxide.
Thanks! I never remember the chemistry on these things.
@@saveitforpartsFor me electronics and signal processing seems like magic. :)
I think refinishing the reflective disc surfaces on the lamps with reflective paint would be a great idea, especially since they where pretty obviously covered in some kind of reflective material before.
This video really brightened my day.
Very iluminating
Ba-dumm-tsssh lol
It shed some light on the subject.
Those lager battery operated lamps ( time at 13:10) were used in the 1950's-1970's on Railroad Lines by Brakemen. I still have my Dad's (brakeman & conductor) on Erie-PA / Penn-Central Railroad.
I actually used carbide lamps, caving (or spelunking) with my friends in the late 80's and early 90's! I still have some of them in my basement, I think.
We used to go down to Kentucky fairly often. When I was young. I love watching ActionAdventureTwins, etc. these days! It takes me back.
I watch them sometimes too! And I've met people underground who still use Carbide, especially in Paris :-)
The last scene where it is just a still image of all the light sources, each lit, would make a good desktop background or screensaver
Tallow (rendered beef fat) candles were quite common. Imagine working in the mine smelling hamburger all day long!
For polish try Bar Keeper's Friend. Feldspar (mild abrasive) Linear Sodium Dodecyl Benzene Sulfonate (surfactant) Oxalic Acid (rust remover)
The carbide lamp works quite well. Noting like a torch underground!
This was terrific. Thanks for sharing.
I've done a fair bit of caving on carbide light. It's surprisingly pleasant, the flame gives a softer light which although it doesn't have much range feels quite natural. I started caving a bit too late (ca 1982) for the head-mounted lights to be popular (Premier cap lamps here in the UK) but had a waist-mounted generator (Fisma, Spain) with a head-mounted burner and peizo ignitiion (Petzl, France). Although electric light was widely used and generally less troublesome the big benefit of carbide was on longer trips - 12 hours+ - where carrying spare carbide was less problematic than spare batteries for the bulky coal-miners surplus lamps we otherwise used.
I believe carbide is a by-product from the steel industry and used to be cheap and readily available, but is harder to come by these days partly because of regulations around storing it in bulk.
good to hear the local HG shop made it to the channel😎
I have really enjoyed your videos. Thank you for all your effort
That second bulb may be 12 volts. These Justrite lamps frequently can take either 6v lantern batteries, or D cells.
You are doing a very good job man. Keep it up.
Cool stuff man. You were very nice with the refurb. Nice polish up but not overdoing anything so that it still has some signs of age.
I have a question, i dug a hole in my garden and before i close it up again i want to place a diy timecapsule in it with messages and little things from people of the neighborhood, what would be a good vessel for that?
For some reason this community felt like the right place to ask such a question.
Thanks in advance!
I did a lot of little time capsules when I was a kid! Something that will be permanently waterproof is key, lots of old time capsules were ruined by water. Most watertight would probably be a big PVC pipe and glue end caps on it with PVC cement.
Thanks!
Nice collection
It is your money and your belongings. So enjoy what you have. Thank you
For flints you could take apart a typical lighter and extract it from there , or else you can buy zippo or other generic brand flints in packs of ten I think .
Thanks for the video , all the best !
The hoop rotates around, and makes a handle, pointing the light to the ground. Also, the hoop goes in the crook of the arm while riding the ladders of freight cars.
If you want to get flints try taking apart dead disposable lighters. The BiC ones have a thicker flint and the cheaper ones have a thinner flint. I have a gum strip canister full of flints that I've saved and they fit in my Zippo and clipper lighters.
CLR and water soak will brighten up the metal, you may also use Rust Out which is a water softener additive but the citric acid powder is strong so use it cautiously.
maybe barkeepers friend
Very cool episode! A close friend of mine has been to sand land, he brought another friend by that has been there. Talk about celebrity status! I was like you have been there?!
This video brightened my day.... 🙃
It's good to shed some light on this topic.
I know it's a bit of an ask but a photo cell and an op amp hooked to the ADC of an arduino or rpi could easily give you a quick and dirty light measurement.
Love the video!
My mother had a carbide lamp on her bicycle in the 1940s during WW2 when electric lights were too expensive for a child. She disliked it much, because of the handling and the stench, but the light was much brighter than electric light afterwards.
Those Justrite carbide lamps used a silver plated reflector made of brass, careful in polishing, the silver plate is extremely thin and it’s possible to polish it off. As for the oil lamp, check with some of the collections groups to see if polishing that reflector would decrease the value of the lamp.
As for flints, find a decent tobacco ship, many times they will sell packs of flints made by Zippo or Ronson. One you have unscrewed the back cover and extracted it with the fine spring, you may find the barrel obstructed with the oxidized residue of the old flint. Use a small drill bit and twist it by hand slowly in the tube to remove the old flint. Once you have made it to the striker wheel back out the bit and go the next size up and again do not use a drill but use your fingers to twist the drill bit through. It is a long but safe process for clearing out the oxide. When you fired up the one lamp I did notice in the video that there was a bit of bubbling behind the nozzle which indicated a leak between the nozzle and its mount in the lamp. Might want to see if you reset the nozzle properly pressed into the nozzle.
Back in the 50’s through the 70’s there was a company which sold small cannons and fuel in what came in a toothpaste style tube. I believe these were called Bangsite cannons. Who knows they might still be around today. The fuel was actually small pellets of calcium carbide.
There's never a tobacco ship around when you want one.
i used to have tin of Brasso brand imprgenated wool for polishing metals gently. worked great i have no idea if its still available.
I use NEVR-DULL and it’s still readily available.
Duraglit in the UK.
The light with the bamboo hoop is a very early switchman's railroad lantern.
you forgot the evolution of oil lamp to pressure oil lamps. The Petromax HK500. Most butane camping lamps still use its 100 year old princible of blowing a mix of air/fuel mix into the mantle making it glow as bright as 500 candles :D
They dont smell as bad as the primitive wick type and sure are bright as hell
Great video,you can use the flint out of a Bic lighter,always really long,or you could get a pack of Zippo lighter flints .....
Bars keeper friend will work and also never dull will work
@4:15 - I do believe that the one lamp I have to show you may be a Davey lamp. It both looks like a flame lamp, but would also seal the flame in. This unit is missing the glass (i think). I will contact you in private. EDIT - I dug it out...it's a Koehler lamp made in Marlboro Mass. It's all brass construction but I am certain that it is missing a couple of parts. It's quite substantial. I think it's called a "Permissable Flame Lamp" This one does NOT have the M.S.H.A label though.
Interesting! I've been looking for a real Davey lamp for mine exploring, I've tried the modern gas sensors but the darn things always fail or go out of calibration on me.
IDK if a Zippo flint would fit but you can get those pretty much everywhere
You can still get 6 volt batteries at hardware stores. There are still some new flashlights on the shelves that take them.
i like your glass telephone pole insulater. you have neat stufff
Thanks for shining a light on these….
you can get a little pack of zippo flints at almost any camping store and most walmarts!
Thanks I enjoyed watching this vid😋😋boy that carbide is spendy
Yeah, I could only afford a tiny can of it! Not sure if there's anywhere to get it in bulk.
I was looking at that can in other video’s already and wondering what it was for.
7:33 calcium carbide made from lime and coke? Sounds more like a fancy beach drink.
I like your blue BDU-33. AMMO!
I used to load those with white phosphorus shells so they could see where they landed. Back in the late 80's when I was in the military.
I think you can make the Carbide lantern reflector better by having it Chrome or nickle plated...
They should sell flints for cig lighters, but I have not looked in a long time...
You can get zippo flints wherever zippos are sold.
Id stick that Alaskan lamp in the ultrasonic cleaner with some warm soapy water. Might come clean
Ah yes, the good ol candle on the top hat
For measuring the light output with a phone, you can use an app like sensor multitool to read the exact output of the ambient light sensor, it ain't the best, but it works
Use brasso to polish, and just buy a cheap walmart BIC lighter and take the flint from that.
Your content pipeline is insane dude
I have too many hobbies and too much junk in the garage so I just started filming all of it :-P
@@saveitforparts haha you’re investment is paying off!
love to see new videos
You should be able to get flints at pretty much any tobacco/vape shop.
I have Two carbide lamps, they have a big handle like in your video at 4:31 I am thinking about EBay. What might they be worth?
It's hard to say without researching, I always try to look for similar brand/age/condition, and check only the "sold" listings for accurate prices.
Sooo when you came across the lamp in Paris, did you happen to be exploring the catacombs?
Maybe 😉
I offered to donate a couple of digital cameras to you a little bit back. Based on this video, I have another item to donate to the channel. I'm going to try and track down your email to send you photos of these items. I won't be offended if you don't want these items. Donating them to someone who is excited about and uses these things would make me happy. I simultaneously love and hate donating things like this to Goodwill. You already helped me save 2 scanners from the donate bucket.
Recommend barkeepers friend.
Someday, Ax-Man will have a youtube channel just for commenting on your videos.
"I don't have any whales nearby" classic beginners mistake.
Intro always reminds me of "Hi, I'm Ed Winchester".
Oh Mr. Peabody!
Walmart Zippo flint there like 3 bucks and you get six flint
Zippo sells replaceable lighter flints!
Barkeeper's Friend is also your friend.
Cool.
Other people probably actually know, but I wonder if a zippo flint would work.
My Grandfather had a Davey lamp, but I have no idea what happened to it when he died...
I believe replicas are quite common these days.
Edit: GPS Status app for Android gives Lux readings, and has a free version, although it's worth paying a dollar or two for. Been using it for years. 👍
I can actually picture miners back in the day spending their paycheck on "the new improved, explosion proof electric lamp" and being rather put off by it's performance. Lol
It's always interesting to see how advancements in technology tend to start off as a downgrade. Just imagine if the miners could see the LED lamps we have today.
i do see your jack of all trade
16:20 Punny. Very punny.
Use brasso, it will look brand new with it
I appreciate the pun
Brasso cleans all of that, but do you really want to clean them?
Zippo lighters have flint about that size. You should easily find some at your nearest smoke shop or online.
Fire is my friend
You should be able to polish it with aluminum foil and coca cola 😀
Those are truly beautiful mining lamps. I think Thomas Alva Edison made mining lamps safer with the invention of the light bulb and the nickel-iron accumulator. This type of lighting was also used in cars in the past. It's a very interesting topic, and I would be pleased to see more historical items showcased.
sick
👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
Where is your ultrasonic cleaner
Ha, I didn't even think of that. I need to remember all these fancy new gadgets instead of using them once and then pushing them into a corner.
You could learn how to tin-plate some of those old steel items. I don't think it's hard...
check out be amazed The LARGEST Explosion in Human History 8:14 shows you're lamp with the big spot
Interesting! These were pretty common lamps but it's always fun to see them